Four-Mile San Clemente March : Chavez to Head United Farm Workers Protest

Labor leader Cesar Chavez is expected to head a protest march Saturday by the United Farm Worker’s union to highlight seven unsuccessful years of labor negotiations with the privately managed San Clemente Ranch on Camp Pendleton, a UFW official said Thursday.

About 300 farm workers and sympathizers are expected to attend an 8:30 a.m. Mass at a parking lot at Avenida Carmelo and El Camino Real in San Clemente. From there Chavez will lead a four-mile march through the city to City Plaza Park where a news conference is planned, said Pascual Jimenez, a UFW spokesman in San Ysidro.

Dramatizing Labor Dispute

The protest marks one of the first UFW actions in Orange County to dramatize a labor dispute during negotiations.

“The march will highlight poor working conditions at the ranch and also the slow negotiations that have gone on,” Jimenez said.

The ranch is managed by the Deardorff Jackson Co. in Oxnard. No representative was available for comment Thursday. At least 300 acres of the ranch are used for vegetables.

No farms in Orange County are represented by the UFW, Jimenez said. The march site was selected because many farm workers live in Santa Ana and San Clemente, he said.

In 1981 the state Supreme Court affirmed a judgment by the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board that concluded the ranch “committed an unfair labor practice in failing to recognize and bargain with the UFW.”

Workers chose the union by vote to be the exclusive bargaining agent with Highland Ranch, the former operator.

UFW officials, at the time, regarded the decision as a vital protection for farm workers employed by farming operations that change hands.

Consequently, the farm workers involved are entitled to compensation, said Jose Carlos, acting ALRB regional director in El Centro. A decision on the monetary reward is pending, he said. Carlos said the workers could receive the difference between what they earn now and what they could have earned if the ranch had bargained in good faith.

The San Clemente Ranch acreage is owned by the U.S. government and leased by the limited partnership that operates the ranch.

The UFW won certification to represent farm workers at the ranch in 1977. Jimenez asserted that a name change, from Highland Ranch to San Clemente Ranch, stalled the certification process for several years, until it was upheld by the high court.

Negotiations are continuing but have been informally delayed on such issues as wages, labor recruitment and health and safety conditions, Jimenez said.

Jimenez claimed that safety procedures on the ranch are inadequate to ensure that each farm worker who comes into contact with pesticides receives proper treatment.

Workers who now earn $4.25 an hour are demanding an increase to $5, Jimenez said. Also, they want piece rates to increase 4% to 5% for tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and cauliflower.

The UFW also is fighting to have the company discontinue or alter itspresent practice of hiring through a labor contractor and change to recruitment at a hiring hall.